Indigenous "Africans" and transnational "Pan-Netherlanders": past and present in the "re-construction" of post-1994 Afrikaner identity.
Abstract
This article explores two strategies to “re-imagine” Afrikaner identity in a
post-apartheid South Africa in which white Afrikaners, once politically and
culturally dominant, have become increasingly marginalized. One, using the
early meaning of “Afrikaner” as “African”, claims “indigenous” status, pressing
for limited autonomy as an African “tribe,” championing language rights
for all Afrikaans-speakers regardless of color, or embracing a larger “African”
identity, even joining the ruling African National Congress (ANC). The other
seeks to rebuild old links, broken under apartheid, to Flemish and especially
Dutch cousins, joined in a pan-Netherlandic community. The article explores
how, although in recent times the parochial and essentialist “official” Afrikaner
nationalist understanding of Afrikaner “ethnogenesis” had stressed its
shaping by the “original” “white” settlers’ struggles with Africans and British
latecomers, denying multiracial ancestry and even downplaying broader,
European (particularly Low Country) influences, a closer examination shows
that that this narrower model long contended with more multicultural and
transnational approaches. The evolution of these rival views of Afrikaner
identity and responses from the Low Countries and some ANC leaders to
these alternative models suggest that such ethnic “re-construction” could help
recast Afrikaner self-definition in promising contemporary yet historically
grounded terms, provided in the case of pan-Netherlandism that it is not
hijacked by the extreme Right, but instead presents Afrikaners as a bridge
between Europe and Africa.